Month: July 2017

And once again I find myself needing to make a post that’s not at all what I planned because I put off doing what I said I would do. I said I would post a completed short story, but I barely wrote anything this week. I could go back to stories I’ve already finished and choose one of them, but I waited too long and I don’t have time today.

I keep telling myself that I just got busy with other things and that I’ll get to it when I have time, but I could have made time earlier in the week. I could have made time to write something. I think I’m just letting my nerves get to me, so I’m putting it off. I don’t know why I’m so anxious about this. I guess sharing an actual completed story is a bigger step than just sharing a couple paragraphs, but it’s a step I need to take. I need to get more comfortable with the idea of people reading things I wrote.

I will post something. Soon. Because I’m tired of being so afraid of putting things out into the world.

Last week I decided that I wanted to share an entire short story in this week’s post, but it’s going to have to wait until next week. I ended up being much too distracted by other things to get something to the point where I was ready to share it. I have an idea for the story I want to write, so if I can focus this week it should be ready to post soon. I really want to start sharing more than just the little snippets that I have been.

Writing Goal Updates

I wrote about a chapter and a half this week. I wanted to write more, but there are some important details that I haven’t quite worked out yet that I need to know for the rest of the story. I’ve been working on it the last couple days so I have some of it figured out, but I still have some work to do, so that’s what I plan on working on the rest of today. I want to get back to writing, so I don’t want to spend too much time on it, but these things need worked out because they could really affect the rest of the story.

I haven’t done any outlining for the other story or any drawings. I think I need to just take some time to get myself organized and figure out how to manage my time better. I have so many things I want to write that are never going to get done if I don’t stay focused. I’ve been far too easily distracted this week, but I think next week will be better.

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I would write a blog post every week. I only have a few hours left of this week and I didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night, so I’m going to make this a quick little post.

Writing Goal Updates

I’ve written 13,919 words of my second draft so far. I know it’s still going to need a lot of work after this draft is finished, but I’m making progress and I’m determined to see this story through to the end. I wrote about two and a half chapters this week, so I’m right on track.

I haven’t worked on the outline for my other story yet, but it’s going to be awhile before I’m ready to work on that, so it can wait. I haven’t started any drawings yet either. I need to just set aside some time every day to work on it and start with something simple.

Sharing

I want to continue sharing things I write here, even if I don’t have wordbound giving me a prompt to work on. My goal for next week is to share an entire short story. I don’t know if it’ll be something I’ve already written or if I’ll write something new, but I want to start sharing more.

Stay focused on my three main projects instead of constantly bouncing between ideas and never finishing anything.

Finish a detailed outline of the fantasy series that I’ve been working on and write at least one chapter a week. It’s going to take a long time to finish this one, so the sooner I get focused, the better.

Draw more so I can improve my skills and draw characters, etc. to go along with my stories.

Write at least two chapters of something a week.

Actually share my writing with others in some way.

Goal Number One

I took this one even further and I’m now focusing on one project (and occasionally some short stories). I tried working on all three, but it just wasn’t working. I think I want so badly to finish everything I want to write that I’ve tried to work on as many things as possible at one time so they would be done faster. But I’ve realized that doesn’t work. I’ll start writing something one way, then move on to something else for a bit, then by the time I go back to the first thing I’ve had so many ideas for things to change that I decide to just start over and then I never finish anything.

I abandoned one project because it just wasn’t working and I didn’t want to work on it anymore. The other two are still really important to me, but I needed to choose one, so I chose the one that I most wanted to work on at the time. I finished an extremely rough first draft and now I’m about 10,000 words into a second draft.

Goal Number Two

I partially met this goal. I did finish an outline, but this isn’t the story I chose to focus on, so I haven’t written anything for it in months. I’m definitely going to come back to it. It’ll probably be the next thing I work on when I’m done with what I’m working on now. I still think about it from time to time and I’ve written down some ideas. I don’t know if I’ll start over or keep going with what I have done now because there are definitely some big changes I want to make and it’s been awhile, but I’ve also restarted this story from the beginning so many times already because of changing ideas. If I did restart it would be the last time. I want to write it the whole way through and actually finish it before going back to the beginning.

Goal Number Three

I completely failed on this goal. I haven’t drawn anything. It’s still something I want to do, I just need to commit and make the time to do it. I want to be able to draw my characters and settings and anything else I can think of as I work on writing something.

Goal Number Four

I definitely haven’t written two chapters every week because there have been weeks where I haven’t written anything at all, but I think if you took all the chapters I have written it would average out to at least two chapters a week.

Goal Number Five

I did this, but I feel like I should have done more. I shared bits of my writing every week here as part of wordbound, but that’s all I’ve done. I haven’t shared any of my writing with anyone I know, so unless they follow me on Twitter and happened to see the links to this blog and read the posts, they haven’t read anything I’ve written.

But I’m not going to put too much pressure on myself to share everything I’ve written. Considering how anxious I was about sharing my writing at all, I would say I’ve definitely made progress just sharing the little bit I’ve posted here. I’m feeling more and more comfortable putting my writing out there. There may not be a lot of people reading, but it’s out there, and that’s a big step forward for me.

Revised 2017 Writing Goals

Finish the second draft of the story I’m working on.

Revise the outline of the fantasy series so I can start working on it as soon as I’m ready.

This week’s Wordbound prompt is: What if you knew everything except the answer you’re looking for in a single moment? I started another short story.

An Excerpt

“Anna, what do we do?” Chloe asked.

She could barely hear her. She didn’t know what to say. All Anna could do was stare at the body sprawled on the ground three stories below the balcony. She watched as the blood pooled around him. Anna knew that Chloe didn’t mean to kill him. She was only defending herself and everyone else at the party. But she also knew that there was no way the police would believe their story because, Jeff, the man who just tumbled off her friend’s balcony, was one of their own.

Anna knew a lot. It was a gift she’d had since she was a child, although some would call it a curse. She retained every bit of information she heard, from the names of her cousin’s friend’s girlfriend she met once at a wedding to the average temperature on Pluto. She often tried to hide it because a lot of people found it irritating that she knew so much. Surely, with all that knowledge, Anna would know what to do in this situation. But standing on that balcony, she had no idea.

Anna and Jeff had a disastrous history as a couple. She’d broken up with him two years ago, but he wouldn’t leave her alone. And, of course, every time she tried to file a complaint with the police, he was right there with his version of what had happened that made her seem like a crazy, obsessive nightmare. She was almost free. She and her soon-to-be husband were looking for jobs out of state and planning to move as soon as possible after the wedding. Apparently it wasn’t soon enough.

This wasn’t Chloe’s fault. Jeff had crashed the party. Jeff had refused to leave. And Jeff had grabbed Chloe, causing the struggle that lead to him falling off the balcony. If they called the police, they would never believe that it was an accident. They would probably think that Anna killed him and Chloe was just covering for her. Even with the dozen women who witnessed it on their side, Anna wasn’t sure they should risk it.

“Anna? What do we do?” Chloe repeated, “Should we call the police?”

“No,” Anna said, taking Chloe’s hand, “Follow me.”

Using all the knowledge she possessed, it shouldn’t be that hard to cover up one accidental death.

Writing Goal Updates

June is officially over and we’re halfway through the year. I’ve written over 50,000 words, which is probably the most I’ve ever written in that amount of time, outside of NaNoWriMo. It all needs a lot of work, but I finally sat down and actually wrote it out, which feels amazing.

It wasn’t the most productive month of the year, but I finally started working on the next draft of my story. I’ve finished a couple short chapters, although they’re mostly backstory that will probably end up as flashbacks, but I wanted to write them first before I moved deeper into the actual plot of the story.

I also think I know what I want to work on during NaNoWriMo. It’s months away, so it’s entirely possible I’ll change my mind by then, but I’m pretty sure about it. It’s a very personal project, and I think the time crunch will help me not to overthink while writing it.